Yeah, I agree that people prefer owning, but what I'm getting at is that someone who owns a 500k home with no mortgage is just as wealthy as someone with 500k in the bank (or Tesla and obscure cryptocurrencies, going by the Caf's style), yet people would be much more ready to call the latter person wealthy.
Which, fine, but then you also have the fact that a lot of people want to be wealthy. The motivation to actually get wealthy differ widely, of course. But, my point is that there's this weird duality going on. People want to be wealthy but at the same time they deny their obvious wealth because they happen to live in it. I'm talking about people with no/low mortgage here.
Do you know many people like that? I know one person under the age of 50 who lives in a nice house and owns it, and he inherited it (and it's not worth £500k).
Its obviously sensible to pay your mortgage of earlier if you can for the money you save on interest, but I suspect the vast majority of people pay it off at whatever monthly sum they've agreed from time time with the lender, at least until they're in late middle age when they might pay a chunk off. Most people I know live to their means, and as such, the more upwardly mobile they become the bigger house they buy (to a point) essentially taking on more debt to fund it. They're actually no richer in real terms, day to day, they simply have higher overheads.
Also, perhaps it's living in the north east, but I don't know many people who could borrow the money to buy a £500k plus house in terms of cash loan to value, or salary. I could buy a house of that value now, but I'd be stretched and I'm a Partner in a law firm so do ok. Different in London of course but then a £500k house in London is nothing flash and as such, I could see why someone living in one wouldn't perceive themselves as wealthy.